Pattern
2 ‘Seeing’ the Kingdom of God
To get to some of the newer patterns I have to set
the scene for how the Lord wants us to continue to search after Him through the
Word of God. The Bible is to point us to the Risen Lord and we will find Him favorably predisposed toward our connecting with him. For the first 10 years of my walk with the
Lord I was schooled in the Religious Philosophy of Man. As part of a
Pentecostal church I went with and flowed alongside the church systems and
structures. Obviously we can discern the
visible error within the 'Charismagic’ movement and much of
Pentecostalism. But there are more
subtle things that are rather blinding.
‘Lighten
up!’
Early in my Christians walk I was told I was too
intense and over spiritual. Later I
found that I was more in tune with how I should have been walking but unable at
the time to reel it in. In other words I
manifested wrongly something that was very right! Nevertheless at the time I began easing up on
some mindsets and practices in order to seem less alien to the ‘hive.’ A catchphrase a leader told me was that
‘Jesus grew in favour of man and God.’
So, if I was annoying or winding up anyone by not flowing with their
perceived lax approach, I was ‘wrong.’
To be clear, I wouldn’t flag things up, I would just simply not party to
what I thought was lax or left me with questions. Subsequently I eased up and labelled my
sensitivity as a personality problem.
How wrong I was (at least about that particular personality problem!).
Why
didn’t anyone tell me this?
It is true the Jesus grew up in favor with God and
man but there came a point when this ended. The time came when Jesus would walk
into the Synagogue and tell them that he was Messiah. This passage is staggering when we see what
he actually did. Quoting Isaiah he spoke
only of the first coming, stopping the reading before the end. The reason Jesus didn’t finish the quote was
because the last part pertained to the Second Coming. The gap between what he said and the end of
the passage has been nearly 2000 years!
This is because Israel rejected Messiah and the Gentiles were given the
Kingdom. The Gentiles and Jews have had
the opportunity to become ‘one man’ in Christ for all this time but it will
come to an end.
This occasion in the Synagogue had Jesus almost
thrown off a cliff like the Azazel Goat.
Was he in favour with men then? I
think not! Note that they were all
basically saying ‘Awwww Bless…’ until Jesus had to stir them out of their
sensibilities. Furiously they wanted to
treat him like an unwanted alien. It
appears that there is a human mechanism at work here:
“Protect
anything, at all costs, that threatens our values.”
From ‘values’ people get their sense of importance,
significance and identity. So a
Christian can get involved with a mission or church and that is always
perceived as ‘a good thing.’ However when the values of that community become
so meshed with the ideology of the person it can reject God’s truth in favour
of these values. Biblical History has
shown us that people can embrace all kinds of ‘truths’ and not even perceive
that God may want to break in to tell them something.
This is why we are, as believers, to pursue a
person, not an ideology.
Truly anchored into Christ, He can lead us and steer
us away from lies, half-truths and
pseudo-spirituality. Those Jesus
had been brought up with in the synagogue had a mix of the Scriptural truth and
secondly, how they had become core invested with it. Once we have incorporated practices,
callings, rites, rituals onto our lives over Christ himself we begin the slippy
slope to stopping our ears to God breaking into our lives to recalibrate our
walk.
Jesus is saying to the believer:
“Whoever has ears let them hear…” (Rev Ch 2-3)
Saturation
This means we can dull our hearing. Spiritually, everything has volume. ‘Volume’ is measured in how much affect that
thing has in your life. If we place a
huge speaker system next to our head we will place it in such prominence that
we cannot hear anything but the noise it is producing. In the same way we can take on board
‘things,’ especially to do with the church, mission or our personal investment
and it’s all we ‘hear.’ Because of the payoff it can become all we
want to hear! Then we are deaf to even
the Lord!
There comes a time when we have to detach from the
systems and structures of Mans ways and suffer the consequences. I had to journey into this camp for a while
until the Lord graciously took me out form it all. To be on the outside, unheralded, alone and
labelled as a failure is a tough place.
However it is the only way the Lord can show you what He wants you to
see.
Our
true source…
I don’t have a fullness of all my journey because
I’m not at the end of it! What I do need
to report is that the Lord wants to take people into a place where he is all.[1] This is more than knowledge of his word, a
better outworking of gift or ability to win souls for Jesus. This is about engaging him as the Risen,
Glorified Lord. It involves as much
detachment from the ‘done thing’ as readdressing our first love. Knowledge of his word, outworking of gift or
winning souls are all the noblest of pursuits… if they come from engaging the Risen, Glorified Lord.
The Disciples of Jesus were on this journey. Jesus would often say ‘You of little
faith.’ What that meant was the
Disciples were still locked into the worldly way of thinking and not entirely
trusting Jesus. A time came when three
Disciples were to witness what is probably the most outrageous events of the Gospels. This event is the Transfiguration.
We need to begin at Luke 9:18 where Jesus asks the
Disciples who he is. Verse nineteen
tells us John the Baptiser and Elijah were prime candidates. This seems a little haphazard but later we
will see why they had this idea. Top
marks for Peter who correctly identifies the Messiah. There is a lot in this passage to deal with
but we are informed that the very start of discipleship is daily death to
self. This theme will permeate all we
observe in this book. Then verse 27:
But
I tell you the truth, some standing here will not taste death before they see
the Kingdom of God.
Luke tells us ‘eight days later….’ Peter James and
John went with Jesus to pray up a mountain.
Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus and we are told the subject of the
discussion was Jesus’ departure. The
Greek word used is ‘exodos,’[2] So
that’s the word for departure, exit, take flight from. Am I the only one seeing red flashing lights
here? Luke uses language to provoke a
remembrance towards Moses’ flight from Egypt.
He didn’t say ‘Jesus’ death.’ or ‘Jesus’ resurrection.’ Luke knew what was happening here so he used ‘exodos’
as a ‘package.’ Luke saw what many have
commented on over this text:
Moses died and was buried in the ground.[3] Jesus died and was buried in the ground.[4] Elijah was lifted bodily from this earth
fully alive.[5] Jesus was also lifted from this earth fully
alive.[6]
Moses and Elijah, discussing Jesus exit, speak of what Jesus had to
fulfil. The only way he could die and be
buried like Moses and ascend into the clouds like Elijah was to come alive
again! We are well versed in the
resurrection, the cornerstone of Christianity.
What
are you pacified with?
If I were invited to follow Jesus in a small group,
that would be enough for me. Then to see
them Transfigured, glowing… I would have probably blurted something out like
Peter did. The majority of Christians
are happy with the glowing. This is
enough to pacify those looking for signs and wonders. There are also those who are searching for
truth and that ‘Moses equals dead and buried’ and ‘Elijah represents the
ascension,’ is good enough. But wait! Jesus said they will see the Kingdom of God! They were glowing? That is evidence of Divine signature for
sure. But is there more to this? Seeing
the pattern of Moses and Elijah is truly amazing now we can see what Jesus did
in dying and coming alive again. But
these do not mean the disciples have ‘seen the Kingdom of God.’
A Kingdom has a King. It is also true that a Kingdom has a
constitution. A constitution is how the
King has commanded the affairs of his subjects.
When we consider a nation we have complexities around how people are
governed and function. The Kingdom of
God will be seen on Earth during the 1000 year reign[7]
when Jesus returns in His Glory to sit on his Glorious throne.[8] How this Kingdom becomes established has
necessitated all the events in the Old and New Covenants. It is leading up to an actual earthly
Kingdom. But how was the Transfiguration
event ‘seeing the Kingdom of God?’ Would
it have been better to say, ‘some of you standing here will see some indications of the past heavyweight
movers and shakers basking in God’s
Glory?’ But no. We have ‘seeing the Kingdom of God.’
It transpires that Jesus himself is the constitution
of the Kingdom.[9] That which comes under his Lordship are
Kingdom dwellers. We are ‘seeing the
Kingdom of God’ at the Transfiguration because the component parts of the
Kingdom are on display. These ‘Cogs of the Kingdom’ fit into place with
forensic accuracy when we see beyond the immediate scene. It’s time to begin lifting the lid on the
Bible and rummage around what the Lord has provoked in the Transfiguration
event.
[2]
Luke 9:31
[3]
Deut 36:5-7
[4]
John 19:38-42 Luke 23:50-54 Mark 15:42-47
Matt 27:57-61
[6]
John 20:17 (implied) Luke 24:50-53 Mark 16:19-20
Acts 1:6-11
[7]
Rev 20 (Isiah 2:4 etc) Swathes of scripture make no sense that refer to the
earthly reign of Christ
[8]
Matt 25:31
[9]
John 14:6 Jesus gives a basic overview
of how he is the actual source of all things
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